American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-5 implies there are 115,500,000 persons with Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder) worldwide

DSM-5, the official diagnostic and statistical manual of the American Psychiatric Association, estimates that 1.5% of adults have dissociative identity disorder (1, p. 294): 1.5% of 7.7 billion (the world’s population) is 115,500,000 worldwide.

The estimated prevalence of 1.5% limits diagnosis to persons whose “symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning” (1, p. 292).

Obviously, without that limitation, the prevalence of multiple personality would be expected to be much higher, an implication supported by my study of two hundred writers.

1. American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. Arlington, VA, American Psychiatric Association, 2013.